As you all know I attended the Femme Fatale Tour Tuesday night in Cleveland, and I must say that it was my favorite concert ever!  I personally have seen Gwen Stefani and Britney live before and of course have watched many recordings of concerts throughout the years, but there is nothing quite like going to a Britney show.  The energy in the arena was astounding, and the joy that Britney brought to people was worth every penny.  Over the past few years Britney has been put down repeatedly by the media, and she is constantly labeled as a manufactured Barbie doll.  The only people who say this are those who have never attended one of her concerts because if they had they would see how genuine and passionate she is about her music.  No one should be allowed to critique her unless they have seen her live in person.
At 7 PM the show kicked off with the first of three opening acts, Nervo, an Australian DJ sister duo.  To be honest they were pretty boring.  There wasn't anything exciting about the act at all.  Thankfully it only lasted fifteen minutes.  Directly afterwards came Jessie and the Toy Boys.  I was actually pleasantly surprised by them.  Jessie is similar in appearance to Britney, and she was accompanied by her two male dancers, who I thought were more entertaining than Jessie.  Their music was great pop-dance music, and the dancing was fun.  Even though they were only on for fifteen minutes they did put on a good show.
After about ten minutes it was time for Nicki.  The crowd was going absolutely insane waiting in anticipation for the female rapper. I was quite excited too because Nicki is one of my favorites and I have wanted to see her live for a while now.  She had a great concept to her show which was great to see because rappers don't tend to have much production value on tour.  The whole story centered around her alter-ego, Roman, coming to Earth in order to defeat Nemesis, her rival.  Throughout the show we saw Nicki go through her trials and tribulations trying to defeat Nemesis.  In the end she of course wins, and fittingly sings 'Moment 4 Life'.  Her set started off great with 'Roman's Revenge' and 'Did It On Em' electrifying the crowd and forcing everyone around to groove to the beats and the rhymes.  After that I felt that the show started to loose steam.  It was just song after song, without a lot of crowd interaction, which surprised me to the utmost.  Another thing that bothered me was that you couldn't really understand anything she said while she was rapping.  It was so loud in the arena that it was hard to hear anyway, but I just didn't enjoy it enough because I simply couldn't hear her signature vocal styling and personality as much as I would have liked.  She did have everyone on their feet though for 'Super Bass' which she used to close the show.  Even though I didn't think that it was as a good as it could have been, it was still pretty darn good.  Nicki is a gem, and I am so glad that I got to see her live.



After Nicki left the stage the countdown to Britney began.  Even though the intermission was forty-five minutes, it truly was the quickest forty-five minutes of my life.  The anticipation in the air was tangible, and as the countdown reached one minute the crowd was going insane.  I felt like my eardrums were going to explode because of the sheer volume of noise issuing from the audience.  The intro video played, and then as the opening chords of 'Hold It Against Me' began the crowd was unbelievable.  The second Britney stepped onto the stage I thought the arena was going to implode.  Britney lit up the stage, and I don't think that I have ever smiled that much in my life.  Britney's stage presence is incredible, and you can tell that this is what she was born to do.  No matter how much people dog her, no one can put on a show quite like the legendary Miss Britney Spears.  There are two things I want to address though.  The first is concerning the many complaints by the media that Britney is "lifeless" and is just "going through the motions".  I can tell you that that is 100% false.  Being in that arena with her was like watching an Amazonian warrior princess protect her homeland.  You could see the fire in Britney's eyes, and her joy simply radiated off the stage.  Also, her fan interaction was a huge step-up.  She actually interacted with us more than Nicki did, which really surprised me.  Britney's a very shy person so to see her do that was a pleasant surprise.  Also, no one has a smile quite like that of Britney.  She has the best smile on this planet, and when she flashed her pearly whites there was no doubt in your mind that she was digging the show.  The other thing I want to address is the lip-syncing.  Britney has always been criticized for it, but when you're in that concert venue you don't even notice it.  In some ways I actually preferred it over live singing because it was much clearer and easier to hear.  That was one of the problems that I had with Nicki, I couldn't hear her very well and so I didn't find it as enjoyable but I could hear everything Britney sang.  It's really not a big deal, and even my mom agreed with me on this which surprised me to the utmost.  Britney had some incredible performances, my favorites being 'Hold It Against Me', 'Gimme More', 'How I Roll', 'I Wanna Go', 'S&M' and 'Till the World Ends'.  The songs that got the biggest response were 'Gimme More' and 'S&M'.  'Gimme More' was no surprise since this is the first time that she has performed it since the 2007 VMA's.  I was actually surprised with the response to 'S&M'.  Of course it's an amazing song, but almost everyone in the arena was singing along to it and the cheering and applause was deafening.  It was so great to see Britney fans united in one place and enjoying their hero.  Britney put on an incredible show that I won't soon forget.